WATERVILLE — An Illinois man who took a bus to Waterville to meet a woman he met on the Internet was charged Monday with filing a false report after he allegedly injured himself and claimed he was abducted to try to gain her sympathy after she apparently rejected him.

Randolph Patriakeas, 30, of Pana, Ill., was discovered lying face down on the side of Main Street around 3:30 a.m. Monday, just north of Eustis Parkway, according to Deputy police Chief Charles Rumsey.

He said police and emergency workers “found Mr. Patriakeas blindfolded and with minor injuries to his upper body, mainly in the form of deep scratches to his chest and stomach and upper back.”

Rumsey said he was “only partially responsive” and was taken to nearby Thayer Center for Health.

After talking to Patriakeas Monday morning, police determined he’d inflicted the wounds himself and made up the abduction in order to get sympathy from a woman he’d come to the city on Friday to meet.

The two had met playing an online game.

Rumsey said he did not know the details of what happened between Patriakeas and the woman that led him to seek her sympathy, but apparently his expectations of the relationship were different than hers.

“It’s all a little bit murky,” Rumsey said.

After Patriakeas was found on Main Street, state police brought a police dog to try to determine where Patriakeas had come from, and the dog tracked him to the woods behind the First Congregational Church at the corner of Eustis Parkway and Main Street, Rumsey said. Police found some of his personal property strewn around the property, including clothes and a pocket knife, Rumsey said.

At the hospital later, Rumsey said, Patriakeas told them that he “traveled to Waterville by bus to meet with a female love interest he’d been in contact with over the Internet.”

He said he and the woman met while playing an online game, but he was not sure what the game was.

Initially, Patriakeas told police he didn’t remember anything from the time he arrived in Waterville on Friday to the time he woke up in the hospital, according to Rumsey.

Police, including the investigating officer, Detective Joshua Woods, ultimately determined there was more to the story than what Patriakeas was revealing and believe his injuries were self-inflicted, he blindfolded himself, and had not been abducted, Rumsey said.

Patriakeas was summoned just before noon Monday and charged with filing a false police report, which is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,000 fine, according to Rumsey.

He is scheduled to appear in Waterville District Court Aug. 19, he said.

Patriakeas was released from Thayer later Monday and retrieved his belongings from the police station, according to Rumsey.

Rumsey said he did not know what Patriakeas planned to do between now and his court date.

“His movements aren’t legally restricted by the issuance of a summons,” he said, but added that if he does not show up on the scheduled court date, he will be arrested.

He said police had to spend time determining whether Patriakeas’ was actually abducted and injured by someone else.

“We have to investigate as if the worst case scenario had happened,” he said. “We have to kind of put the resources to it in the event this was a real abduction or robbery, or assault or whatever happened.”

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